bumper trim paint job

londonTiger

I have some trim on my bumper which is 5cm wide and wraps all the way around the bumper.

All the trim and door handles were originally black on my silver car. But I managed to find cheap breaker parts on ebay (factory painted) and stick them on my car for very cheap.

Rear bumper and door trim £35. Door handles £35.

But I've struggled to get the front bumper - bought two breaker parts but they were both iffy.

I think front bumpers are just more predisposed to being damaged in minor parking bumps and scraps. Also it's front end damage which usually writes off a vehicle to send to breaker so it unlikely I'll find a pristine front bumper trim on a breakers

First one was in bad condition, second one was a DIY job where something just painted silver paint on a blue laquer and it's now peeling off. Duh!

Body shops seem to have a minimum price for these jobs. Look at £150+ just to spray paint the trim. Anyone know a cheap method?

Not interested in DIY as I've also done that and the paint came out a lot darker and I destroyed about 3 weekends prepping the trim.

forgotmyname

If you cannot do it yourself then you need to pay someone else to do it.

Job came out darker? What colour undercoat/primer did you use?

Dont forget the car is not new and mayb have been bleached by the suns rays. So the original colour maybe a touch darker.

Usually worse with red cars. Ive seen some turn pink.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

body shops can charge what they like for these type of jobs because they are basically tedious pieces of work, and also a waist of materials and paint supplies.


heres whats needed, prep work scuff and fill scratches in plastic, that's 2-3 scotch cloths, 1-2 air grinding discs, blob of plastic filler, more sanding and shaping 4-6 sanding sheets, then plasticoat 1 litre made up for upto half a litre use, then 2k primer again 1 litre made for half a litre use on trim, then guide coat use of a rattle can of black another use 4-6 360 wet and dry paper and metered water, once all scrathes is smoothed out, 1 litre basecoat made for half a litre use, use of bake oven then 1 litre lacquer made for half a litre use and baked again. for two relatively small pieces of trim what I would do is charge you my going labor rate, charge you for 1 litres of everything eventhough half was used the rest was waste, bucket of metered water and meterials. otherwise im going to be at a loss of time on other jobs for this tedious piece of work. paint shops will price themselves out of doing the job as they are not really needed jobs.


that said, have your own paint match made from a door handle you supply at a paint and body supplies shop, that will give you a better match than just asking for a body paint code made, have about 2-3 cans made £18 per can last I paid for one. use a good plastic primer not that colour match crap, and good primer from you local paint supplies and a good lacquer. make sure your scuff down is good enough for a good key for the plasticoat then primer ontop of it (no scuffing the plasticoat) apply 2 wet coats (don't worry about runs your going scuff down the primer anyway scuff them out aswell) when primer is dry apply a quick dusting of black spray paint or guide coat, and scuff down with a 320 grit paper, any black lines from the guide coatis where you scratches are scuff out all the black lines, then apply another 2 wets coats of primer, dry out 24 48hours, come back and wet sand with 400, dry off and wipe with alchohol wipe, then start using your base paint, first coat will be patchy and blotchy, second will get a little more coverage, third coat should be applied a little more wet and the final coat of base should be full wet coat, (don't worry about runs, you can come back to those areas with 1200wet paper and sand them out) then apply 2 wet coats of lacquer, again with the runs don't worry you can 1200 then 2000 the whole trim and polish back. job done

sinbad182

I'd suggest you stop attempting to polish a turd